MDS fundraiser, 17, says she’ll never get over losing her ‘invincible’ big sister as she raises funds in her memory

CROSSING the half-marathon finish line, I was overwhelmed with emotion. My big sister Alice should have been running with me, but tragically she’d died eight months earlier – and I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

Growing up as the youngest of three children, I always looked up to Alice, who was five years older than me. My earliest memories are of us playing in the garden. Our bedrooms were next to each other and in the morning I would always knock on the wall to see if she was awake.

Alice dreamt of being an author - but coming home from Uni one summer she said she was tired, out of breath and had lots of bruises

Alice would always come home for the holidays, but when she returned in June 2015 she said she hadn’t been feeling well – she was tired, out of breath and had lots of bruises. Tests revealed she had myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a rare blood disorder that could lead to leukaemia.

We both burst into tears. It was so shocking as Alice had never even missed a day of school through illness, so when she said she would beat it, I believed her – she was my invincible big sister.

Eight months later, in February 2016, she developed leukaemia and started chemo immediately. But even through this she stayed positive, trying hard to reassure me, saying they’d caught it early and she was confident it could be treated.

Knowing her hair would fall out, she had it cut off and donated it to the Little Princess Trust, who provide wigs to children with hair loss. It was typical of Alice to try to make the best of a bad situation.